Response distortion
Some assumptions behind personality assessment, especially self-report questions, are important enough not to be ignored. The assessment assumes that respondents are aware of their characteristics, understand or interpret questions in the same way as others do and answer honestly and accurately. This may sound quite simple and fundamental, responses are always subject to a number of variables. Response set refers to the cases when respondents answer in certain ways to produce certain images of themselves. It includes overcautiousness being excessively cautious; extreme responding, tendency to give such extreme responses that even mentally disordered people may not do, such as choosing “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” and avoid “slightly agree” or “slightly disagree”; and oppositionalism, tendency to respond oppositely to what they believe to be true. Among the response set, three most significant variables are acquiescence, defensiveness and social desirability. First, acquiescence is the tendency when one is in doubt or uncertain to agree (answer “yes” in yes/no question and answer “true” in true/false question) rather than disagree (answer “no” or “false”). For instance, an answer “yes” to a question item like “I consider myself as an intellectual person”, there are two possibilities in interpreting the “yes”. One is that the “yes” comes from the fact that the person is actually intellectual, while the other “yes” is simply a reflection of the person’s uncertainty if he or she is an intellectual person. The correlation between positive response (yes, true, agree) and such personality aspect as extroversion or stimulus acceptance are significantly high. The reason of this tendency to over respond “yes” to this kind of questions can be traced down to the linguistic character of English. It is a characteristic of English language that asks certain kinds of questions in certain ways. We cannot ask certain questions in reverse form since then they sound awkward and clumsy. “Structural characteristic of our English language that the items asserting certain behaviors ordinary will be written to the keyed for “yes” answers” (). Secondly, defensiveness refers to deliberate efforts to produce certain results, mostly either by faking good or by faking bad. One may be motivated to fake good to appear to be better adjusted than they actually are. Or one may be motivated to fake bad to appear to be more maladjusted than they actually are. For example, a person suing a next door neighbor for mental anguish caused by noise and environmental condition might be motivated to appear very distressed to the court-appointed psychologist. The most significant notion in response set is social desirability. Social desirability is generally defined as an unconscious tendency to respond in a socially desirable way to make a positive impression and to avoid negative impression. Some psychologists view this as trait in itself and use it to measure some other variables such as reflection of need for approval. It is also used as an important predictor variable to determine psychopathology or psychological health. This is because normal people respond to questions with social desirability, while mentally disordered people respond without social desirability. However, majority of psychologists see social desirability as errors and something that should be eliminated from the score. We learn to experience negative feelings, such as anxiety or guilt along with punishment and rejections from the society when our behaviors do not conform to social norm or expectation. We learn to experience positive feelings, such as pride and pleasure along with reward or acceptance when our behaviors are socially conformable. Therefore, with the obviousness of the “correct” answer, people are almost automatically made to respond in certain ways. For example, a true/ false question like, “Most of the time I see things positively”, you might answer “yes” even if you actually see things negatively most of the time because that tells that you are a well-adjusted person in this culture. People respond “not to the content of the item but to the kind of impression a “True” or “False” answer would create” (). Socially desirable behavior is connected to good adjustment and people, living in a society or in order to live in a society, are affected by how people see you and what society demands or expects you to be, which conceals the accurate essence of one’s personality. Response set becomes more significant when making important decisions about people’s lives, such as admission for certain schools, hiring, placing, promoting and firing employees, determining someone is not guilty by the reason of insanity, and allowing prisoners to be paroled. Inaccuracies are often introduced into the test scores by response set and assessments fail to capture the true essence of one’s personality, which they are intend to do so.
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